Deputy District
Attorney Alan Jackson will speak at the California Republican Party’s upcoming
convention, the party announced yesterday.

A GOP
spokesperson said Jackson will speak at the convention’s Feb. 25 banquet, along
with former Minnesota governor and national Mitt Romney campaign co-chair Tim Pawlenty,
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus, and 24-year-old
Placentia Mayor Jeremy Yamaguchi. The event is being held at the Hyatt San
Francisco.

CRP Chairman Tom
Del Beccaro said in a statement that Yamaguchi and Jackson represent “the next
generation of rising stars in California” for Republicans. “Whether it’s the
youngest elected Mayor in California, or a rising star among the law and order
community, we have a glimpse of the impressive leaders of tomorrow.”

Figures recently
released by the secretary of state put GOP registration at a little over 30
percent, its lowest level in decades. The figure in Los Angeles County is less
than 23 percent.

Jackson
spokesman John Thomas told the MetNews that while Jackson accepted the party’s
invitation to speak, the candidate is seeking support from all sectors in the
officially nonpartisan race.

The unsolicited
invitation, Thomas said, reflects the fact that Jackson “is a rising star,
based on his record as a prosecutor, and he’s making waves throughout
California.” But Jackson has always viewed the prosecutor’s role as apart from
politics, he added.

“He doesn’t
check voter registration cards when he decides who to prosecute,” the spokesman
commented. While Jackson is the only registered Republican in the race—Deputy
District Attorney Steve Ipsen and Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich
have left the GOP in recent years, he said—“we have support from Republicans,
Democrats, and decline-to-states across the county.”

Also seeking the
post are Chief Deputy District Attorney Jacquelyn Lacey and Deputy District
Attorneys Bobby Grace, Mario Trujillo, and Danette Meyers. But Thomas said that
the contest was “becoming a two-person race” between Jackson and Trutanich,
whose campaigns have exchanged barbs in recent days following the disclosure
that the city attorney’s operatives had announced endorsements he didn’t have.

In other news,
Trujillo’s campaign announced that he had received the endorsement of Rep.
Linda Sanchez, a Democrat whose district runs through Artesia, Cerritos,
Hawaiian Gardens, Lakewood, La Mirada, Whittier, Florence, Long Beach, Lynwood,
Paramount, South Gate, Watts, and Willowbrook.

Also announcing
endorsements was Trutanich, who won the backing of United Food and Commercial Workers
Local 770, Laborers Local 300, and International Longshore Workers Union Local
63.